Break the 4ide units barier?

[Technoid]

Can a UDMA66 card be used to add more IDEdrives to a system that already has 4 IDEdrives?
Of what I have heard they work as a SCSI card and if u have enough IRQ's be used to atach more Drives!


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INTEL PIII450 MSI 6163
G200Mill 16MB SDRAM + RRG
SBlive
128 MB RAM
19GB HDD Space!

[KvHagedorn]

Just upgrade to SCSI

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[DentyCracker]

Still too damn expensive, except for CD Burners which everyone should have

[Guyver]

The ABIT HotRod 66 add-on card supports both UDMA 33 and UDMA 66 devices. As does the ABIT UDMA 66 controller embedded in the BE6 and BE6-II.

Guyv

[Plmr]

U Becha, so can a raid controller..If your drives are close in capacity you can stripe them for 2X speed and capacity..Yahoo.. Ive got 2 18gig Quantum KAs as my C:, 2 IBM 10 gig as my d:,1 dvd ,1 Sony cd-rw and an OnStream 30 gig Tape backup all fat and happy with my network ,sound ,G400 and extra LPT ports. the raid controller uses 1 Irq for all 4 drives ..happy happy joy joy ...
Matt

[Nigel Bradshaw]

Technoid

I have an Abit BE6-II with 4 IDE drives and an UDMA66 drive, and there's still room for 3 more UDMA33/66 drives!.

Hope the info helps, on a personal note the BE6-II is the biz!.

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Nigel

Any opinions expressed in the contents of this message and any file attachments, are my own.

[Jammrock]

If you put a UDMA66 controller you will have access to 4 UDMA44 devices and 4 UDMA33 devices. UDMA66 does not support more than 4 devices as it is just a variation on standard IDE.

If you want more than 4 devices per chain you will need SCSI. It will probably stay that way for 2 reasons:

1) Compatibility issues. To go more than 4 devices would require an overhaul to the IDE/UDMA format and would be a costly overhaul. People who use IDE are not accustom to costly overhauls, so not going to happen any time soon.

2) SCSI makers would fight any change tooth-and-nail, because they are making a fortune (Adaptec) on SCSI.

Jammrock

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PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

[Bixler]

Technoid,

A Promise Ultra 66 added to your system for a whopping $60.00 will solve your problem. It uses a single IRQ, and runs off the PCI bus. Pop the thing in, load the drivers, make sure it isn't sharing any important IRQ's and you've got 4 more IDE devices (2 master/slave) Some issues with varying HDD sizes being mixed, just check their FAQ's to get a full understanding. And yes, they use a hack to get win95/98 to set up the card as a SCSI device, even though it isn't. The card is fully backward compatible with ATA 33. I'm using mine for the same purpose you describe, and everything coexists peacefully. It also will allow you some more flexibility in the assignment of Master slave combos, which is why I bought the thing.

Hope this helps.

[Technoid]

Thanks Bixler!
I though that that was the case (or more like one IRQ/2HDD)!
So now i know that i can "Kill" an serialport pop a card in and 1-4 more drives!
I allready have used all of my IDE ports :
Sony cdu771 Slot in
Sony crx100e 4/2/24 CD-R/CD-RW
Quantum 6.4 UDMA 33
QUANTUM 13 UDMA 33(66? Not sure!)

And now i can get more HDD's and of course
A DVD!
I could drop the CD for a DVD but sonys DVD is a tray and i realy like the slot in! :-)


------------------
INTEL PIII450 MSI 6163
G200Mill 16MB SDRAM + RRG
SBlive
128 MB RAM
19GB HDD Space!

[Bixler]

Glad it helped.

I hinted earlier that there were some issues with HDD's of differing sizes. I could be wrong here, but it's my understanding that the Card "fools" the OS into seeing only a single HDD. This hack can cause problems if the two drives are vastly different in size. Be sure and check those FAQ's. One other thing to check out. My Promise installed itself on IRQ 10...you mentioned that you could free up an IRQ by deleting a serial port, but that might not be a high enough IRQ in the pecking order to work optimally. IRQ priority goes like this 1,(2&9),10,11,12,13,14,15,3,4,5,6,7,8. Serial ports are typically on 3,4, some of the lower priorities. I don't know if it'll be a problem, just be aware of that issue.

GOOD LUCK--and make sure you have the latest bios and driver updates by checking here http://www.promise.com/support/testdrivers.htm

[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 30 December 1999).]

[traverso]

Bonjour

are you sure you can share this IRQ

irq devices

0 time
1 keyboard
2 cascade
3 com2-4
4 com1-3
5
6 floppy
7 lpt3
8 RTC
9 cascade (2)
10
11
12 mouse
13
14 ide 1
15 ide 2

i think that you must be very prudent.

a Plus

[traverso]

excuse

irq device
5 lpt2 (free if you don't need it)
7 lpt1

[Bixler]

Traverso: Bonjour (that's all my French )

There are IRQ guru's much greater than I, but let me try to clarify your question. Are you asking whether certain IRQ's can share devices and whether certain others should not? I yield to others greater on that question.

What I know about priorities and sharing in one paragraph.

As far as the Promise is concerned (or any other HDD add on controller), I was only mentioning that it MAY work better on a higher IRQ priority than 3 or 4. My Ultra 66 installed itself on 10. If it is going to be a HDD controller encountering heavy use, then sharing (while compliant with Windows standards) isn't too wise. It's the same issue that power gamers run into with Matrox G400's that are sharing IRQ's...Just check all the posts on THAT one.

Things that work are not always things that work BEST.

Traverso: If this confused you, then ignore. If you want to try again with your question, there are answers on this forum. Or maybe you are an IRQ Guru and the language barrier is keeping me from understanding. English is frustrating, I know, --too many variables --keep trying.

[traverso]

Bixler : it was only to help and not to define me an irq guru french man.
only to specify be carefull if you have to fix irq in the bios because i had to fix all my irq (isa and pci)to have my mg400 run fine.
ok ?

happy new year

[superfly]

uhh...guys,there is a few more advantages to scsi than just being able to connect more devices.for one you can connect up to 14 devices per channel and there are dual even triple channel scsi adapters which can accept up to 45 devices all of them using a single irq.second the raid cpabilities of some scsi adapters are far greater tham what the promise controler delivers,like raid 0(striping)raid 1(mirroring )raid 5(parity check)also all of the scsi controlers that support raid(some do,some don't)have the abillity to add memory(up 128 megs in some cases)on the controler itself to act as buffer memory for the scsi devices alone.third, right now the max speed of the scsi protocol is 80megs per second per channel(the more channels,the better)but in the next two months there adapters available that push that speed to 160megs per second per channel(some motherboards have alredy ultra3 controlers built in) and there are working on standards that push that speed limit to 320 and 640 megs per second within the next 3 years .fifth one of the features scsi supports is called connect/disconnect feature which the scsi controler uses to ensure that the maximum bandwith is always available to any one device,so if you're accessing only one hard drive the controler will shut off the remaining devices to ensure that all available bandwith is allocated to the device in question.sixth,have you tried to(with a dual processor sistem and n.t of course)burn a CD-ROM while defraging another hard drive(not my c: drive)while playing quake3 at the same time?,well... i have and never had any problems burning(all cd's came out perfect),just try that on any ide controler.so in the end i don't think adaptec or other scsi companies would be worried even if promise made an adapter that's supports as many devices as scsi does.